Joe Lieberman won it in 1988 in what was then the most expensive race in Connecticut history. Chris Murphy won it Tuesday in what is now the most expensive race in Connecticut history.

Each race in its time was considered to be among the most contentious in state politics.

No one knows how long Murphy, the Democratic U.S. representative who defeated Republican millionaire Linda McMahon, will hold the seat, but Lieberman has been a U.S. senator from Connecticut for 24 years. That will end in January, when Lieberman retires and Murphy takes his place.

It's been quite a run for Lieberman, who has been unfailingly loyal to his hometown of Stamford. During the recent Jewish holidays, readers wrote to say they saw Lieberman, who lives downtown with his wife, Hadassah, buying kosher goods at Beldotti Bakery on Newfield Avenue.

"I love Beldotti's," Lieberman said Thursday from his office in Washington, D.C., where he is preparing for the final session of this Congress.

Lieberman has had a history-making career. In 2000, he was the first Jewish candidate for vice president of the United States. He and Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote in a race so close that it ended with Florida's infamous "hanging chads" ballot recount and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that put George W. Bush in the White House.

After that Lieberman announced at Stamford High School that he would be a Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential race. The bid failed, but he won Republican praise a short time later when he came out strong for the Iraq war. That cost him the 2006 Democratic primary in the Senate race in Connecticut, so Lieberman ran as an Independent and won, keeping his seat.

During the 2008 presidential race, Lieberman, still a Democrat, backed his friend, John McCain, a Republican, with whom he shared views on foreign policy. McCain wanted Lieberman to be his running mate, but his campaign talked him into choosing Sarah Palin. In Connecticut, which heavily supported Democrat Barack Obama, Lieberman was vilified.

With the Senate teetering between Democrat and Republican control, Lieberman the Independent made headlines nationwide. He has many stories to tell the grandchildren.

Looking at the end of his career, Lieberman said he finds himself embracing a lesson his late parents, Marcia and Henry, taught him when he was growing up in Stamford.

"Life is about today, and a little about tomorrow, but not about yesterday," the 70-year-old senator said.

So he's looking ahead to the lame duck session that begins next week, when Congress faces tax cuts set to expire and looming spending cuts that could decimate all manner of government programs.

In his final weeks as a U.S. senator, Lieberman, long a Democrat with Republican leanings, will look like the Independent he is.

"We are on schedule to cut $500 billion based on the Budget Control Act adopted last summer. That would put the military in the position of not having the personnel or equipment to fight the war against terrorism," Lieberman said. "Terrorists are a very unconventional enemy. They are not in uniform, they don't have battleships. In the future we will not be attacked in our strengths, with nuclear submarines or fighter aircraft. We will face chemical or biological attacks and, increasingly, cyber attacks. It takes money to prevent cyber warfare."

His stances on national security are what split him from his Democratic roots. It started when he was a student at Stamford High School, Lieberman said.

"I read a lot of history and I was struck by how conflicts often began with one country or individual trying to take advantage of another, and the only way to stop that was to remain strong," he said. "I was 18 in 1960, when I graduated Stamford High, and I was excited by the candidacy of John F. Kennedy. His inaugural address had such an effect on so many in our generation. He said we should be prepared to pay any price and bear any burden in defense of liberty. The Democratic Party has not been as committed to strong national defense as it was when I came into it. I would say now that President Obama has repaired some of that, but I think both parties should be committed to national defense."

Lieberman said his career "ended up being more controversial than I would have guessed when I started. I know I did what I believed was right. I'm not saying I was always right, but I believed I was doing what was right for my country and my state. So I have no regrets about the controversy I got into."

It started with his first step into national politics. Lieberman was a state senator from 1970 to 1980 and state attorney general from 1982 to 1988, when he challenged the powerful incumbent, Republican U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker Jr.

Each spent more than $2.5 million, a record for the time, in a contentious contest in which Lieberman campaign ads portrayed Weicker as a hibernating bear who slept through important votes. The race was so close that it almost came to a recount, and people were stunned that Lieberman defeated Weicker, who made a national name for himself during the Watergate investigation.

The cost and nature of campaigning has grown only more outrageous, Lieberman said.

"In the 2006 race with Ned Lamont I raised $20 million, and I was told that if I ran in 2012 I would have to raise $35 million or $40 million," he said. "So much of the money that is raised in campaigns is spent on attacking the opponent personally. It lowers the level of political discourse and cuts away at the respect and trust people have for those in political leadership."

Imagine that Wal Mart spent all of its advertising budget making Target look bad, and Target spent all of its budget making Wal Mart look bad, Lieberman said. "Nobody would shop at either place."

His U.S. Senate seat was hard-won, at times hard to hang on to, but now he gives it up freely, Lieberman said. He and Hadassah will return to Stamford, where they can be close to New York, home of most of their children and grandchildren.

"I had dreams and ambitions in politics, but I never thought I would run for national office, so I have a real sense of gratitude for Al Gore," Lieberman said. "In his campaign he not only made a decision about me, the first Jewish candidate, he had confidence that the country would not judge me on religion, and he was right."

He loved campaigning around the United States in 2000 and meeting all kinds of Americans, Lieberman said, but he "will always feel disappointed and angry about the outcome. I think the Supreme Court decision was unjustified."

There is something for which he is particularly grateful, he said.

"I know that when I lost the Democratic nomination the majority of the people of Connecticut disagreed with me on the Iraq war. Many of them said to me, `We think you did what you thought was right.' And they gave me another chance," Lieberman said. "That meant more to me than I can express. My most profound emotion now is gratitude to the people of Connecticut."